Comparision of Houston sports blogs

I haven't yet delved too deep into reading blogs, but one I've liked reading is that of Richard Justice, a sports columnist for the Houston Chronicle. His blog, SportsJustice, is separate from the material he writes for the newspaper; for example, he had a post lauding the Texans after their big win over the Carolina Panthers Sunday.

I then found a second Houston sports blog, on KPRC Local 2's Web site. It's written by Randy McIlvoy, the Sports Director and an anchor for the television station. I wasn't familiar with it before this assignment, and from what I read I wasn't missing anything.

It's easy to see that Richard knows better how to use a blog, as his includes long entries, viewable reader comments and at the top of the most recent one he had links to interviews with Texans players commenting on the latest win. While on this latest entry I didn't notice any replies from him to reader comments, I know from reading it in the past he will respond. I've always enjoyed reading his columns and the blog is no different. He may be a columnist, but he still attends practices at times, and interviews top officials with the Astros, Texans and Rockets, which goes a long way in legitimizing his opinions on the teams' respective front offices.

McIlvoy's blog on the other hand, was not very good. There was a link to send him a comment via e-mail, but nowhere on the site were readers' comments visible to the public. The entries were also generally shorter and did not provide links to past stories or articles written by others in the industries (which Justice does; he's even provided links to YouTube in reference to high school performances). "Randy's Rants" seemed to be more about...well, Randy, instead of being an area to converse about Houston sports. His "about me" bio page is long as any entry I saw, and in the top right corner of the site is his mug.

I've read Justice's columns for a while now and there's usually good reads. They provided substance whether the reader agrees with him or not, and that carries over to the blog. Rand's Rants focus more on upcoming content on other forms of media: radio, TV highlight packages to look out for, etc. In this regard Justice is more entertaining to me.